[RPG] What are Acceptable Small Mounts

Towering Mountain of Rage

Right, you want to to propagate Rage effects throughout a tower of creatures. That's... actually kind of interesting. Beast Totem chain grants Pounce and 2 Claw attacks, substantially improving the combat prospects of all creatures in the tower.

Well, the applicable rules are contained here, Pathfinder's Mounted Combat Rules on PFSRD.

Looking them over, we have some... interesting interactions. For a start, as your Half-Orc mount is not a 'combat-trained mount', you have to make a move action to control him in battle as he becomes frightened. Yes, the condition. No, I am not making this up.

But hopefully we could waive that somewhat ill-considered clause (what about an intelligent animal? ugh) and assume a half-orc with player class levels is 'trained for combat riding'. So, you're looking at a DC 5 check, probably with a -5 since a half-orc is not 'suited to riding', to keep the use of both your hands and 'control him with your knees'.

I'm struggling to contain my giggles as I write this.

A slightly more difficult attack is to 'Fight With A Combat Trained Mount', a DC 10 Ride Check, with again that pesky -5 for being ill-suited as a Mount. With Ride as a Class Skill, though, it's probably pretty easy to make this check, especially with an Exotic Military Saddle.

Note that EACH rider would have to make this check, so 3/4 of the stack if you're going Mammoth->Gorilla->Half-Orc->Gnome. I'm not sure if Gorillas get Ride as a class skill. This is particularly problematic as if the Gorilla gets unseated from the Mammoth... well, actually, both the Half-Orc and the Gnome would get to roll to 'Stay in saddle', actually, which is only a DC 5 check. Presumably the Gorilla could attempt to 'Fast Mount' in his next turn, thus returning the stack bonuses to the Mammoth.

I can't find any rules in the Mounted Combat section or the Ride skill to disallow this.

I also think it would be awesome, and utterly approve of the mobile 'Tower of Rage'. Note that the Entire Stack would act on the Initiative of the gnome ("Your mount acts on your initiative count as you direct it. You move at its speed, but the mount uses its action to move.")

I assume this means that the stack acts on the gnome's initiative, but moves at the Mammoth's speed (and if it charges, they all count as charging). Note, I am unsure if a Small Character with 10' of reach from a spear could actually reach the ground if he was on the back of a half-orc on the back of a gorilla on the back of mammoth. I think he couldn't, actually. Ergo, he should probably multiclass to bard and do some form of 'rage music', because, why not.

There is a catch, however; Ferocious Mount mentions that you must spend an extra round of rage to spread the rage to your mount, which the mounts can't do as they have no rage class ability. Greater Ferocious Mount makes no mention of this, but Rage powers don't activate if the wielder is not in a Rage, SO while you can make a Tower of Mounts, you cannot make all those mounts rage unless each mount in the stack is also a Barbarian.

It's worth noting that if each mount is a Barbarian, they will pass on any continuous Rage powers during the Rage to any Barbarians lower in the stack, potentially making the lowest Barbarian have many many many Rage Powers.

But yes. Unfortunately as is it doesn't work unless all but the lowest 'mount' in the stack are all Barbarians with enough Rage rounds to make this worth doing.

Awakened Cat Barbarian riding a Gnome Barbarian riding an Orc Barbarian/Warchanter with war Drums riding a Minotaur Barbarian riding a Huge-Ass War-Mammoth is essentially 90% of the point of playing Dungeons and Dragons.

In 3.5e they would all be wielding monks, as monks are a manufactured weapon.

Probably it would end up looking a little bit like this; YOUR LIGHTNING IS ALL I NEED

In the examples, Tygal's correctly using the feat Shaping Focus, but Nazghymbatulu isn't because the saurian shaman druid archetype delays Naz's wild shape ability until he's at least a Drd6.

A druid with the special ability wild shape who takes the feat Shaping Focus increases his effective druid level by up to 4 for the special ability wild shape but not beyond the creature's total character level

Thus a typical Drd4/Ftr3 who takes the feat Shaping Focus employs the special ability wild shape a if the Drd4/Ftr3 were a Drd7. (I chose the Drd4/Ftr3 instead of Drd4/Ftr4 because in typical campaigns the latter character wouldn't have a feat available at that precise total character level.)

However, the feat Shaping Focus can't benefit the saurian shaman Drd4/Ftr3 who, because of his archetype, until he reaches level 6 as a druid, lacks the special ability wild shape:

At 6th level, a saurian shaman’s wild shape ability functions at her druid level –2. If she takes on the form of a reptile or a dinosaur, she instead uses her druid level +2.

Prior to 6th level, then, a saurian shaman doesn't have the special ability wild shape. Therefore a saurian shaman Drd4/Ftr3 is unable to meet the prerequisites of the feat Shaping Focus and can't get the feat's benefits were he able to somehow.

Likewise a creature with no druid levels that somehow managed to take the feat doesn't gain the special ability wild shape as if the creature were a level 4 druid.

By analogy, the feat is like a coupon for extra 4 toppings on a pizza; one must still buy a pizza to get the extra toppings.